Acceptance
by TheSecondOtherGuy
Summary: A comatose woman wakes up as Aerith Gainsborough at the begining of Final Fantasy 7. She struggles to live, and die, as Aerith did so she can return home. Rated T for mature themes and character death.
1. Open Eyes

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Acceptance

Chapter 1: Open Eyes

I drifted.

I was aware of very little; it was dark and earily silent. I couldn't smell, taste or touch.

On rare occasion I could hear a mutted voices, I dimly recognised voices of different people but I couldn't recall their owners names, I would reach for a sense or meaning in the whispers but as soon as the unconprehensible whispers began to form words they slipped away from me and I would feel like I was falling. The speed of my drop would slowly decreese and eventually stop untill I was drifting again,far from hitting any sort of boundry.

Maddening. The entire situation was maddening.

More than the elusive garble and the absent senses I was bored. I was awake but unable to do anything other than think and I couldn't help but dwell on the questions that plagued my overaware mind. They built up the longer I drifted but always ended up Looping back into one another: Where was I? What happened? Why am I here? Why can't I remember what last happened to me?

The last thought buzzed around my mind the most. I'd found the decisive blank in my memory almost instantly. My memory simply cut off to black and I found myself here, wherever, whatever, here was.

I remember waking up in the morning. I remember having a cup of tea and a slice of buttered toast for breakfast. I remember driving to my sisters place where I gardened with my unresponsive mother as Francine did chores around the house. I remember walking Max around the block before leaving to go to work. I remember my three hour shift at the pharmacy with perfect clarity, I stocked the shelves and showed a diabetic woman where the needles where. I remember my late lunch with Emma and driving her home.

I don't remeber taking another step after I closed her front door behind me.

I hesitate to call it black because it wasn't. It was nothing. There is a strong difference.

Dimly I felt something different. Something had changed. I could feel again. I felt light against my closed eyelids.

I wasn't drifting anymore, I was being wrenched upwards by an unbeleivably srong force. I struggled against it out of pure mule headed ness. I'd been drifting for what felt like so long after all so the unfamiliar sensation of movement was unwelcome. Alas, it was useless and I felt myself on the borderline of conciousness.

Light burned against my eyelids. My body was covered by I thick quilt and I felt no desire to move from its warmth. Without thinking I curled into a ball burying my face in the blankets and breathing in I realised something was wrong. It wasn't an instantanious realisation. It took several long moments to settle in through my sleep clouded mind. My bed, it felt wrong.

Breathing in again I saw that it smeled wrong too. I was used to the smell of tea and cigaretts that saturated my entire house but both of these comforting sents where absent, instead they where replaced by the smell of dirt and lavender.

I couldn't get out of that bed fast enough.

I jumped up looking around, I was in a extremely feminin unfamiliar room. Bright colours, pink,yellow and green blared at me and I wondered where I was and with slight amusment who's bed I was sleeping in. I ran a hand throught my hair wondering what on earth was going on when I noticed.

The hand was pale. I moved the hand experimentally clenching and unclenching the fingers. I was controlling the hand, but it wasn't mine.

I noticed a floorlength mirror in the corner of the neat room. I walked over to it hesitantly slightly scared by what I would see.

I was terrified.

In the mirror there was no black hair, no tanned skin, no cinnamon eyes, no tall athletic figure. It wasn't even the fact that it wasn't me that was so terrifying. Being a hidious three eyed mutant may have been preferable to the doey eyed brunnette that stared back innocently at me.

No, I was staring at Aerith Gainsborough.

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Now that's more of an intro than anything. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I guess we'll see...

Review for cookies!


	2. Aware

Disclaimer: I own nought but a nameless OC ;)

Acceptance

Chapter 2: Aware

I was Aerith Gainsborough. That much was enough to blow my mind, but of course, that wasn't it. I was Aerith Gainsborough living in the Sector 5 Slums in Midgar with her adoptive mother, Elmyra Gainsborough. I was twenty two years old again, in a body that wasn't mine and in a vaguly familiar though awfully taunting and terrifying place. I felt more than enough justification to be mind blown.

My situation was so sureal, one moment I'd been living my life; absolutly content and not ever imagining leaving my simple and repeditive bubble- mothers with Alzheimers, mundane routines and oblivious acquantances I knew, the next I was in Gai.

I stared at myself in the mirror looking desperatly for things I knew wouldn't be there, features or expressions that didn't belong on her face. It was sureal and for a moment I let myself imagine that it was some sort of prank, tecnology kept on developping creating new things with unnecesary functions. It had to be some sort of giant hoax, what else could it have been, I calmed.

But everything felt so reel, my own senses where against me and I knew even without looking that this was no illusion. I felt my body and the lack of any substancial muscle was strange, I felt so much weaker, so much more fragile. It was confusiong, just another thing to add to another confusing situation.

I looked down on her near bare form and looked around the unfamiliar room for a dresser or cabnet. I walked over to the only cupboard in the room on wobbly legs. Everything was closer then I was used to, it was an odd feeling. I pulled it open, subconciously trying not to look at her hand.

Inside where dresses and various clothes of the kind I would never where. THe dominant colour in all the garments was of course pink and I couldn't help but cringe, the rest of it was twice as bad: powdery colours and the fills...

No, for a moment I lost my conposure. Everything I wore would look atroshious on me, and even then I'd never been one for skirts or dresses... I shook my head and rumaged through the few outfits and picket out one that I recognised instantly. It was a mid shin length light pink dress with darker lining. I pulled it out with the matching coat and lay both garments down on the bed and stared down at the nostalgic items with a frown. I didn't want to put them on, it was like if I did and I was doing this of my own volition it would set things in motion. Despite this sense of forboding I also felt that maybe if I rolled with it and whatever it was that had landed me in this roll would be saited and send me back home.

I let the arguments weigh in my head as I contemplated what I wanted to do. I decided with a quote I was fond off: "live or let live", and pulled the dressing gown, also a too bright shade of pink, over my head and stepped into the dress slowly doing up each button top down. I left the coat on the bed as I went around the small room looking for something to do my hair up with. In the end I found only an old rubber band and with a sigh I pushed my hair away from my face and pulled it into a simpe pony tail. Aeriths hair was so long it was frustrating, I was surprsied when I ran a hand throught the thick brown locks that it pulled through clean, free of knots.

After searching some more for a pair of socks I slipped on the jacked and a pair of plain brown boots. They where comfortable and reminded me of my own ugg boots. I looked into the mirror again. I really was Aerith, I mused, as I inspected her; the gravity of the situation had shifted once I'd made my decision. I'd made it, I would follow it through.

So now what, I asked myself. I was dressed and sitting in the brightly painted room with nothing to do. I could tell it was past the time I would usually wake up, I couldn't help but glance out the window and noticing the grey light everything took and the absense of light. Aerith hadn't seen the sky untill she left Midgar with AVALANCH. I felt a frown form on my lips as I looked on the murky senery, the most of it where run down houses and litter ridden streets.

I had to leave this room eventually, now was as good a time as ever, I decided pacing around her room getting used to the borowed body. I walked over to the door and inched her hand towoards the door knob. Time to go, I mentally chided myself. I had no illusions, I was terrified of whatever was beyond that door. I knew exactly what was there but I couldn't help but feel terrified by the concept of having to live as her. As Aerith, it was horrific, I didn't wasn't to be here.

I breathed in heavily, stoping the mental break down before it could start. One step at a time, I chanted, turning the door handle, determined. I continued repetaing these words in my head as if it where a sort of mantra. I walked down the stairs letting her hand down on the rail. The house was silent all but for the slight noises comming from the kitchen. I heard shuffling and the scrape of pots and pans. Somone was cooking, I decided.

I walked around a corner into the occupied room. Sure enough a woman, who I instantly recognised as Elmyra, was walking around the cozy kitchen with a pan in one hand and eggs in the other.

"Good morning Aerith. Your up early." She said cheerfully looking back at me for a second with a warm smile planted on her face. I couldn't help but smile back, small as it was; it was a genuine honest smile, the kind you only saw from the best types of people. The woman had won my trust in that moment.

"Mornin'" I said back surprised when a yawn interupted my words. I had no idea what to call this woman; 'mother' or a variation of such, or did she call her by a pet name or simply her own name. Considering she's called me by her full name it was probably safe to call her her full name.

"Did I wake you up?" Elmyra asked cracking the eggs into the frying pan.

I shook my head but realising she couldn't see I spoke up; "No, I've been awake for fifteen or so minutes."

Elmyra nodded and I looked at the tiny dinning table and was imensty glad there where only two chairs, that saved the embarasment of picking a wrong seat. A mug of half drunken coffee was placed by the chair closest to the fridge, I noticed the crockery and plates on a counter and set the table before sitting down. Despite my resolve the situation was so awkward, I didn't know how Aerith lived, hense how could I be her?

Elmyra server toast and scrambled eggs on the plates and begun eating, I folowed her example and tried not to stare at the unfamiliar woman as she picked up the paper back from next to her coffee and began absently reading it while eating.

We both ate quickly and I got the impression Elmyra may have had some sort of appointment as she seemed to be rushing. She looked up once she'd finished her meal.

"You left you hairties and ribbon in the bathroom last night." She said getting up and I stared at her curiously as she retrieved said items from ontop of an end table. "Here." She said handing them to me. I took the handfull in both her hands and couldn't help but steal a glance up to the older woman.

"What?" She asked, evident amusment in her voice.

"Could you do my hair?" I asked unable to stop the heat that rose to her face. I blinked down for a second before I looked back up at the woman who have a large nostalgic smile. Aerith was a woman, twenty-two, it wasn't surprising; though the fact that the gesture meant so much to Elmyra suprised me.

"You havn't asked me to in five years." It seemed like I'd said the right thing since she smiled happily and pulled the rubber band out of her hair, running a hand through it. It felt extremely nice the last time anyone had done my hair had been when I was twelve and after that...

Elmyra braided the brown locks neatly tying the pink pow around the base. I felt her push something underneth the bow and it took me a moment to realise what it was, the materia, Holy, that Aerith always kept with her. I smiled up greatfully at the woman and she returned the gesture.

"Now I've got to meet up with a friend, you do the dishes then feel free to go tend to your flowes." She said hugging me breifly before leaving.

"I'll see you later."

"You too." I answered as she left and listened to the noise of her grabbling her purse and keys before the slight slam of the front door. I collected the dishes and went to my chore and only once I had washed them and looked around the kitchen sheeing where all the dishes where stored I let my self sit down again and ponder the newest question prodding at my mind: where was the church?

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Done! You guys should be gratefull, I'm updating this at one o' clock on a friday night. Now here is the question that has been daunting me: long chapters or short chapters? I promise you guys no matter the length I will leave you with a slight cliff hanger (they're so easy to write :P) but I wasn't your opinion to see wether I should update short chapters more frequently or long chapters less frequently. So what do you think?

I haven't written the next chapter yet whatever you decide, but a big thank you to Fushia Flame, KafeiDetour, Rami Neko and xXxIRISxXx!

Reviews are love 3


	3. Flowers

Disclaimer: If I had any rights to this wy woukd you be reading this on ?

Acceptance

Chapter 3: Flowers

I had eventually found my way to the unfamiliar church after wondering around the slums for a while. One you passed the into the poorer area of Sector 5 the sheer height of the ruined building made it stand out and I could see it easily, what proved more difficult was making my way to it through the zigzaggs routes created by the disorganised building clutered almost randomly.

I'd wondered before when I played the game why it was that the church was unoccupied when it seemed the soundest structure in the district but when I reached it I saw that it was in fact the oposite: the church was a ruin, with cracks running up thick stone walls and chunks of roof and even wall strewn around the outside of the church. I was amazed the large oak doors helt firmly in place. They did squeek as I used what little strength she had to push one of them open, they where extremely heavy, and slipped through the small opening quickly before the door slamed shut behind me.

I looked around the empty room; the first thing I noticed was of course where in the center of the church the floor had long since chiped away and flowers, yello and white, grew happily in the exposed dirt. A large hole in the roof let through a small amount of mirky light but it must of been more than enough for the flowers because they where blooming happily.

The next thing I did was slowly work my way around the church looking at everything. I inspecter the a painted glass window. Most of the windows where smashed letting in more murky light but the largest stood untouched by the years, the picture was that of a godly looking woman, she was bare but for a white robe drapped procariously around her form with extremely long blond hair and peircing blue eyes. It remeinded me of the greek goddess Aphrodite. I wondered if in the past people had worshiped Minerva as Christians did God.

I shook my head, these wern't people, I reminded myself. I found myself standing next to a rather plain weelbarrow; it was full of fresh looking flowers and I wondered how they could look so alive when they must have been picked hours ago. Aerith was suppost to be a flower girl, I should tend to the flowers, I thought. In the corner I found the few gardening tools of Aerith, they where used but obviously well cared for.

I let myself take my time tending to the flowers and smiled at the smell of the plants, letting myself give into the moment if I knew that the rest of Midgar was goind to be as desolate as the Slums and without life. So I fell into the easy pattern I knew well, I would always garden with my mother; I knew little about th eflowers them selves but it occupied time and kept mother happy and that was enough.

I sighed happily as I finished tending to the flowers, unable to keep the smile to myself and wondered what to do now. I had decided I would be Aerith but they never really said what it was that Aerith did inbetween gardening and selling flowers.

I glanced to the weelburrow, there was my answer. Aerith had sold the flowers at one gil each, I remembered my mind helpfully filling in the blanks in my thoughts. I walked over to the weelbarrow and though it was quite crudely made, it looked as if it had been repaired serveral times. I noticed etching in the wooden handle and squinted at the messy lines. I made out two letters 'Z' and 'F'. I almost gasped in realisiation, It w=must have been the weelbarrow Zack had made for Aerith.

It made sense though, he was the one who had first suggested selling flowers when the two had first met and by the looks of the house it didn't seem as if the Gainsboroughs where in a bad place financially so she must of taken it up on his suggestion. Despite the fact their relationship was never confirmed I'd been convinced that Aerith and Zack held mutual feelings for each other but neither had admitted their feelings and then it was too late...

It was quite sad, I thought, when looking around this place and realising these where their lives even if they wern't real. The fact that they where manufactured stories didn't help the tradigidy of the entire situation, and it seemed that it didn't matter how much they stuggled they would be doomed- I cut of my thoughts before I could begin dwelling on my own fate. None of it was real.

I picked iup the weelbarrow and was surprised to find it wasn't heavy, the wood was actually extremely light and it showed me again how much care was put into the inanimate object. I pushed it over to the double doors and steddying myself I pushed the weelbarrow against one of the doors to open it knowing it was the only way I could have brought the object out with me.

Thankfully, with a large groan, the door opened and I was outside again. I strolled around sector 5 happily with a smile on my face. It was intresting watching the people in the Sector deal with each other, everything was so different but at the same time the same, I mused. Old women gossiped on the streets and couples walked my hand in hand. It was loud and busy, small shops where open everywhere selling whatever services and items that could have been of need. That was another thing I noticed, there was nothing of convenience or unnecessary, the people in the lower Sectors where much to poor to buy jewlery or treats and it was obvious that any such shop that opened wouldn't have enought buisness and inevitably fail. It was sad because it was esswentially what I was doing now.

A young woman with mousy brown hair and passive grey eyes walked up to me, I stopped the weelbarrow and smiled at the nervous looking woman

"What's with the flowers?" She asked shyly.

"Would you like one? They're one gil."

The small, though still taller then Aerith, girl nodded after hesitating. She handed me a one gil pieve and I picked a flower out from the weelbarrow and gave it to her. She smiled happily at the white flower and murmerd a thank you before shuffling away. It was nice, I though, her smile at the flower, there was something about flowers that made anyone smile.

I continued like this wondering around the streets on occasion selling flowers, generally to curious children and their young mothers. Each time I couldn't help but smile as I saw the same expression light up their faces. I looked up at the plate, missing the skym if anything just so I could tell the time. It was so dark everywhere and though no body seemed to notice it it put a damper on everything. Aerith had never seen the sky, I thought sadly. I wondered how any one could live without it but then you couldn't ask someone to miss something they'd never had.

I kept on pushing the weelbarrow and wondered where I was, the streets had slowly grown more and more deserted and I was completely lost. I stood still for a moment pondering in wich direction I needed to go to head back to the church. I wished dearly that Aerith had a watch she wore with her signature outfit. I glanced down helplessly at the matching bangles on my wrists, I'd always been a woman of convenience but sighed when I noticed the slight tan line under the bracelets, I couldn't shed them. I pushed the cart back in the direction I'd come from and abruptly stopped when I noticed a all to familiar bond staring at me.

If the SOLDIER style uniform, hair that would make a chocobo jealous and oversized cooking knife of a sword was any indication I recognised Cloud Strife. I smiled as I walked up to him ignoring the scowl he sent my way.

"Would you like a flower? They're one gil." I smiled widder as the scowl melted as he looked down at the weelbarrows contents.

"Yes." He said so quietly that if I hadn't been listening for an answer I would have missed it. He wordlessly passed me a one gill piece and I picked out a large white flower.

"Have a nice day." I said as I turned away and began pushing the weelbarrow so I could return. It took me only a moment to realise I had started moving in a random direction and I had no idea from which direction I'd come from. I looked back and sure enough Cloud was gone.

I sighed realising I was hopelessly lost.

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Since no one responded to me oh so heartfelt question I will write shorter chapters since I'm lazy and it allows me to do more time skips. Since I have no idea what happened inbetween scenes with Aerith was in I'm making this all up on the spot, I hope it dosn't seem too odd and so far I've yet to incorporate any major characters yet so there's no OOC moments but if there are in future do not hesitate to warn me! I'm counting on you guys.

So heres my list of epic people: Fushia Flame, KafeiDetour, Rami Neko, xXxIRISxXx, FRAODD and ghulsmrasool! I'm really happy you guys like this story (so thats why I'm here pumping out another chapter at one o' clock in the morning, on a sunday .)

Reviews are love


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